


The Grey Lady

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 01:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16440776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Oliver is haunted by the ghost of a woman he accidentally killed who was included on Robert Queen's list by mistake.





	The Grey Lady

It was always the same. Oliver would see the figure in grey running ahead of him, he’d hear his own voice saying “Laura Brewer, you have failed this city!” as he fired the arrow straight through her heart. Sometimes he’d be on the hunt for someone else from the list, would aim his bow and arrows at them only for the ghostly figure of Lieutenant Laura Brewer to appear in front of him. He’d see his arrows going straight through Brewer’s ghost, the distraction causing him to miss his mark.

Oliver should never have trusted Robert Queen’s list without question. He’d read the name Laura Brewer in the notebook, had accepted his father’s word that she was a corrupt police officer in Malcolm Merlyn’s pocket. Hell, he could even remember, back in the days before he boarded the Queen’s Gambit, being at Laurel’s and hearing Quentin Lance talking about how he wouldn’t trust Laura Brewer as far as he could throw her. So when he’d seen her name on the list, had heard about her taking bribes to look the other way and feeding information to Vertigo suppliers in the area to help them evade drug busts, he had no trouble believing it.

He hadn’t intended to kill her. He’d meant to give her a shock, to frighten her out of sharing the information he was sure she was on the verge of sharing. Yet Laura Brewer had fallen and hit her head while fleeing from his arrows, and Oliver had heard the next day from Walter that she had died of her injuries.

He’d intended never to kill. Bring them down, stop them from failing Starling City, honouring his father’s memory, but as far as he could he meant to do it without taking a life. Now he saw Laura Brewer’s face every time he closed his eyes. And when he’d attended the memorial, and heard Quentin Lance giving a speech where he revealed that Laura Brewer had not, in fact, been corrupt, but what Robert Queen had taken for her being on the take was actually her working undercover, OIiver understood that he had gone after an innocent woman.

Diggle had tried to talk to him, said that there was no way he could possibly have known that since it was all hushed up and only became public knowledge after Queen’s Gambit had set sail, and he knew it had been an accident. Yet Oliver knew he would remain haunted by his actions, and any time he went after anyone else from the list, having personally made certain that they were justifiably included, he saw a woman in grey appearing in front of him, taking the arrow to the chest, calling his name.


End file.
